A Note to Mainers

Congratulations on your new car horn!

Your car's horn is designed to get the attention of other drivers, as well as dogs, children, and other pests that are occasionally impediments to safe driving.

Your car's horn is not to be used indiscriminately at 5am in front of your friend's house because you're too lazy to get out of your car and knock on his door yourself.

The Infrastructure Blues

Just before Christmas, the Maine Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) released its 2008 Infrastructure Report Card. The report covers fourteen aspects of Maine infrastructure, from roads to ports to parks to wastewater treatment, and more. The grading scale goes from 'A' (exceptional) to 'D' (poor). There is no 'F' rating. As anyone who lives here could have guessed, the results for Maine were not good.

Maine received 'D' or 'D+' grades in five of the fourteen categories: Contaminated Site Remediation, Dams, Municipal Wastewater, Bridges, and Roads. (The overall grade for the state was a 'C-', just barely above poor.) A simpler way of looking at this is that, according to the ASCE at least, one-third of the state's infrastructure is failing.

This report only underscores my observation that Maine has the worst roads I've ever driven. Only the Interstates and the tourist-heavy coastal Route 1 approach any state of driver- or car-friendliness, by my experience. (By ASCE standards, only the Maine Interstate meets any kind of 'good' condition.) In addition, a closer look at the report reveals that Mainers spend on average 285 extra dollars per year on "extra vehicle operating costs," amounting to $286 million statewide. (No wonder my mechanic is the happiest Mainer I've ever met.)

What will it take to get things to change? A massive bridge collapse like the I-35 in Minneapolis? Let's hope not. Will Obama's proposed infrastructure cash infusion help? It couldn't hurt, and Maine obviously desperately needs it. But it'll come a little too late to save me money: I'm having new struts put on my car this week. One week into the new year and I'll be over the $285 dollar average. I can't wait to see what the next fifty-one weeks will bring.

Anchoring the Stress Belt

Meant to post this article from the Sun Journal, our little journalistic outpost here in Lewiston. Apparently, Mainers are not happy people.

Yes, we're in the Stress Belt. We're disagreeable, neurotic, and keep to ourselves. You might be tempted to blame it on the weather. But I say it's not from the snow, the cloudy days, or the cold -- it's the roads.

Dogs, Pools, and Motorcycles

Apparently, three things Mainers can't live without:

Dogs. Three new families/annoyances have moved into our neighborhood. All of them have dogs. Some have more than one. All of these dogs bark. A lot. Apparently, leashes are optional. Winter can't come fast enough now.

Pools. Why is there a pool for every third house in Maine? Why have something you can only use, oh, two months out of the year? One of life's great mysteries, unsolved.

Motorcycles. I've discussed this Maine phenomenon before. I guess it's part of the American dream to own something that you can purposefully make louder, just for kicks. Let's let Bart Simpson have the last word: "Snipers, where ARE you?"

What do you do with it all?

The snow, that is. With record amounts of the stuff piling up around the state, you'd be forgiven if you need to find creative outlets involving snow. And if you're the folks in Bethel, you build things. Like the world's tallest snowman.

Angus, the world's tallest snowman, was built in 1999 and named after then-governor Angus King. A few stats from the website tell the tale:
Height -- 113 ft. & 7 inches tall
Weight -- 9,000,000 lbs
200,000 cubic feet of snow
4 ft. wreathes as eyes
6 ft. of chicken wire & muslin for the carrot nose
6 automobile tires as the mouth
20 ft. fleece hat
120 ft. fleece scarf
3 skidder tires for the buttons
2 - 10 ft. trees for arms


As if that weren't enough, now they're at it again. Today, Bethel will unveil Olympia, soon to become the world's tallest snowwoman. She'll top out over 122' and 12,000,000 pounds (for a BMI of 3936, just a bit into the obese zone.) Olympia also has 30' pine trees for arms; hopefully they'll post full stats on the website soon. In '99 it took Angus 15 weeks to melt: Given this crazy winter, Olympia may actually grow in the coming weeks.

The forecast? Six to ten more inches of snow for us overnight, maybe over a foot at Bethel.

The Trashman Cometh

No, I'm not dead. Or resting, or pining for the fjords. Or even snowed in (yet). What was a busy few weeks became a busy couple of months, and now that Thanksgiving is behind us, I have a little breathing room again. So what's been going on since I've been away? Let's summarize:

...the Red Sox won the World Series. There was dancing in the streets in Maine. Really. I heard it myself. Silly fans.

...the Wife and I moved to a new (for us) apartment. We're on the second floor, away from the drafty house and the loud, motorcycle-infested street corner.

...it has snowed five times so far, with more due imminently. See the new sidebar attraction at right.

...the Packers are 11-2! 11-2!!! So what if the Pats are unbeaten -- THE PACK IS 11-2! Unfrigginbelievable.

...the college football teams representing my alma mater, my former place of work, and my current place of work went a combined 10-24. And none of those teams was Notre Dame.

...here's a test to see if you're still reading: Which of these four is NOT the name of a former or current breakfast cereal? (No Googling!) 1. Optimum Slim 2. Product 19 3. Milk Floats 4. Body Buddies.

...I bought an iPod. Welcome to the 21st century, finally.

Wow. Such excitement. It's no wonder I took three months off from blogging.

Your Maine Summer Travel Guide

Yes, summer has been with us for over a month, and it's even stopped snowing here in Maine. But now that August is here, it's officially high travel season here in Stephenkinglevania. With that in mind, and as a one-year Maine resident with almost no credibility, I present to you a few travel tips to help you get the most out of your next trip to Maine.

1. Enough with the lobster jokes already. We've heard them all, believe me.

2. Bear in mind that, on any road, people will pull out in front of you regardless of how close you are to them. They will also swerve out of their lane and into yours to avoid something. Relax -- this does not mean they don't like you ... unless you're from out-of-state.

3. Mainers love their motorcycles, and the louder the better. So make sure that hotel room you're overpaying for doesn't face a road. Pony up that extra c-note for the waterfront view.

4. Don't drink the Moxie. Trust me. And avoid the red hot dogs.

5. On any day over 75 degrees, expect one in every five males you see on the sidewalk to have his shirt off. There is no correlation between, say, the desirability of seeing this and the person doing it.

6. You must visit L.L. Bean. It's the law.

Well, %#!*!

It's snowing. Again. Madame Nature, apparently miffed that I missed the eight inches of snow Maine got last week while I was freezing in Georgia, is visiting this cursed stuff upon us again. We're expecting 6-10 more inches of sleet and snow today and tonight.

But it's not all bleak up here. A new restaurant opened recently, right here in sunny Lewiston: Fuel. The Wife and I went this week, after my return from Golfing Wonderland, and really enjoyed it. (For the record, I had the Steak Frite, while she had the butternut squash soup, Caesar salad with white anchovies, and potato and leek gratin.) So much so that we're going again with the co-workers this weekend.

If we can get out the door, that is. #$!@&!

I just got Stupider.

On weekends, when the Wife and I are not driving to Brunswick or Portland, or fuming about another onslaught of snow, we (ok, I) watch a lot of sports. This weekend it was mostly basketball, with some hockey and golf Sunday. After watching the Penguins demolish the hapless Bruins, I lazed about watching Tiger win again and hearing the gushing about The-Deity-That-Is-Tiger over and over from the NBC crew. Which is where the title of this entry comes in.

Why, oh why, does NBC persist in having Jimmy Roberts constantly annoy us with his presence? Usually it's his garishly mawkish pieces on some forgotten or beaten-to-death item, carefully calculated to tug our heartstrings and move us to tears. Sunday, however, it was a brief "conversation" with some guy (name forgotten, but probably the PGA's version of Matt Drudge) breaking the news that Phil Mickelson was seen practicing with Butch Harmon after that day's round. So what, you say? Butch Harmon is not Phil's coach! Jimmy added his own little "the chat rooms will be on fire over this" comment, to help us figure out just how important this news really is. Proving once again that life really is like high school. I just hope Phil's coach Rick Smith will be, like, so totally over this by the Prom.

Oh, and remind me next month to stay out of spitting distance from this guy. Blech.

Still Alive

Too busy and cold to post; more coming soon, tho. Another wintry blast today -- the high will be 8, tonight's low -5.

But only one month until I get to go here.

Snow, redux...

...or, Yet Another Sign I'm No Longer in the South. (Along with truck commercials advertising cheap plows with every new truck, restaurants with snowmobile stations, and a lamentable lack of hush puppies.)

By my count, here in happ'nin' central Maine we've had 9 snowfalls -- counting flurries and dustings -- totalling about 21 inches of accumulation. So Sunday I'm watching the local weather, and the weatherma-- excuse me, meteorologist-- says "Looks like we could get our first measurable snowfall on Wednesday."

Apparently, if you don't need to measure with a yardstick, it doesn't count. Expectations are for 12-18 inches of snow -- stay tuned.

Snow

Although we've had several small snows totaling about 7 inches so far this winter, today's storm is being called the "first snow of the season" by the locals. As a transplanted Southerner, I can only wonder at this perspective. But I must say I do like the lack of panic on the local news, and the fact that life seems to generally go on as planned. But I still can't wait for summer, and I've already stocked up on milk, toilet paper, peanuts, and beer. You know, staples.

In keeping with the semi-archival theme of this blog, here is an appropriate link for today, about the blizzard of 1996. I remember this storm, as I was living in central Virginia at the time. The snow measured 19" at our house when all was said and done, and my visiting sister-in-law got stuck with us for several days. On top of the snow, we had a deep freeze for a few days afterwards, and then another big storm (about a foot, iirc) not long thereafter. Our old Datsun froze solid (keys wouldn't work, couldn't shift gears once I did get in), and I didn't hear a car go by our house for nearly a week. My wife remembers saying at the time "I will never move to New England." Who says there are no cosmic jokes, eh?

So if you're in the northeast and reading this, enjoy the weather today. If you're in my old stomping grounds -- likely wearing shorts and thinking "Ha ha, sucker" -- I'll be thinking of you in August.